A Web 2.0 Conference Day – Wrap Up

There are a few additional photos from Web 2.0 Expo that I wanted to share and so I took some creative license with the timing of some of the events to tell the story of a typical conference day.

The first day of a conference for me typically starts out with registration:

A stop by the speaker/press/blogger room then rolls into keynote presentations from industry leaders and news makers like these:

Jonathan Schwartz CEO of Sun and Tim O’Reilly

Matt Cutts from Google

and Matt Mullenweg co-founder of WordPress

Some keynotes are worth blogging and many others are not. The challenge is to pick the right mix of blogging and photos that best represent the conference and reader interests.

Before you know it, it’s lunch time – one of THE best times to network for prospective clients, marketing partners, vendors and new employees. Hopefully the food doesn’t suck too bad. Otherwise, you schedule client or hot prospect meetings at a proper restaurant.

Once the exhibit hall opens, of course you have to walk through it to get to the lunch area which was mysteriously served elsewhere before exhibitor booths were on display. No matter, visiting exhibitors provides a great way to learn about new technologies, prospect future clients and of course, conduct competitive research.

After lunch there’s more sessions where attendees sit patiently through a mix of presentations ranging from entertaining to informative to sales pitches. In between sessions you do your best to stay on top of email, phone calls and possibly sneak in some friendfeed.

Some presentations include very in-depth graphics and explanations which further reinforce the ideas being presented and in some cases, guide the audience into a state of, “This is fantastic, but I can’t possibly do this all on my own. I need outside help.” Other presentations will disappoint and many truly inspire.

One of the great things about conferences is that you run into other people that share your interests you wouldn’t normally see in person. As Robert Scoble said in our interview, some of the best parts of a conference come from interactions in the hallways.

At the end of the day, there are private dinners and after conference events where people gather to meet like-minded professionals and have conversations,

meet friends

listen to and maybe dance to some music

and in some cases, watch Unicorns run wild.

At the end of the festivities it’s time to go home and do a few hours of work, making notes of all the contacts met that day, prime blog posts and organize notes from sessions covered, compress/upload videos, upload and tag photos, answer emails and schedule the next day’s sessions before the next wake up call to start all over again.

I truly enjoyed the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco because of the technology focus (geeks galore!) and the optimism. Albeit, it’s a bit of over-0ptimism in many cases, but all the same, it’s a forward looking, intellectual and hopeful perspective towards possibilities, collaborations and building things of value. Hats off (pun intended) to Dave McClure, Techweb and O’Reilly for a great event.

Now here’s a poll for readers of Online Marketing Blog: Are conference “photo posts” a good thing or no? Or should I just link to the Flickr set we’ve set up like this one for Web 2.0 Expo?

(No Ratings Yet)

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@LeeOdden is the CEO of TopRank Marketing and editor of Online Marketing Blog. Cited for his expertise by The Economist, Forbes and the Wall Street Journal, he's the author of the book Optimize and presents internationally on B2B marketing topics including content, search, social media and influencer marketing. When not at conferences, consulting, or working with his talented team, he's likely running, traveling or cooking up something new.

I think there is some value to these posts. It’s always great to see something new, especially new tech. I wasn’t at this show, but if there is anything that a write up should do, it’s give an overarching theme of the show.

It might be tough to encapsulate, but I want to know what all the great minds are thinking at that show during that time. Someday, maybe I’ll be at these things myself, but until then, relying on posts like this works well.

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